The Massachusetts Institute of Technology has launched an internal investigation into the school’s involvement in the suicide of 26-year-old computer programmer and Internet activist Aaron Swartz, MIT’s president L. Rafael Reif said on Sunday. Swartz was accused of breaking into MIT’s computer system in order to access academic articles and make them available for free on the Internet.

Before he died last Friday, Swartz, who was a well-known computer programmer — but not an MIT student — faced a 35-year prison sentence on federal data-theft charges for illegally downloading articles from the subscription-based academic research service JSTOR. Swartz had allegedly broken into a secure MIT computer closet on at least one occasion and hooked up a laptop in order to download JSTOR files, before he was arrested in 2011 by Cambridge, Mass., police.

Swartz, who was considered one of the brightest young minds in tech activism, hanged himself on Friday night in his Brooklyn apartment. He had been struggling with depression for many years. Swartz’s partner, Taren Stinebrickner-Kauffman, was the first person to find him, according to the Wall Street Journal. There was no apparent suicide note, officials said.

Swartz’s death cast a pall over the tech world and prompted soul-searching questions among policy experts and university officials — not to mention his grieving family and friends. Swartz’s passing triggered an outpouring of grief from those who knew him well, and the broader technology and Internet community.

MIT, one of the nation’s most prominent and respected universities, has come under criticism for its handling of the Swartz affair. In July 2011, JSTOR said it would drop any civil claims against Swartz. According to Lawrence Lessig, who runs Harvard University’s Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics, where Swartz was a fellow in 2011, MIT fell short by not following JSTOR’s lead.

As if that wasn’t enough, hours after MIT issued its statement on Sunday, the university’s website was disabled by unknown cyberassailants. The Tech, an MIT school newspaper, reported: “MIT’s network fell to a denial-of-service attack Sunday evening, allegedly by the Internet activist group called Anonymous, cutting campus users off from Internet access to most websites for nearly three hours.”

“Early on, and to its great credit, JSTOR figured ‘appropriate’ out,” Lessig wrote. “They declined to pursue their own action against Aaron, and they asked the government to drop its. MIT, to its great shame, was not as clear, and so the prosecutor had the excuse he needed to continue his war against the ‘criminal’ who we who loved him knew as Aaron.”

Prior to his death, Swartz faced up to 35 years in prison and a fine of up to $1 million for the alleged JSTOR downloads. He had pleaded not guilty. His trial was set to begin next month. Several prominentobservers, including Lessig, called the potential penalty disproportionate to the alleged crime.

In a statement, JSTOR officials sent condolences to Swartz’s family and friends. “The case is one that we ourselves had regretted being drawn into from the outset, since JSTOR’s mission is to foster widespread access to the world’s body of scholarly knowledge,” the nonprofit academic organization said.

For its part, Swartz’s family criticized the way MIT — and the federal government — have handled the case. “Aaron’s death is not simply a personal tragedy,” his family wrote. “It is the product of a criminal-justice system rife with intimidation and prosecutorial overreach. Decisions made by officials in the Massachusetts U.S. Attorney’s office and at MIT contributed to his death.”

Swartz’s lawyer, Elliot Peters, had made overtures to Assistant U.S. Attorney Stephen Heymann aimed at settling the charges, according to the Wall Street Journal. But Heymann insisted that Swartz plead guilty and face jail time, and Heymann wouldn’t budge from that position, according to the paper. Heymann works for Massachusetts U.S. Attorney Carmen Ortiz, who has faced criticism over her handling of the case.

In a statement, MIT president Reif sought to strike a conciliatory note. “I want to express very clearly that I and all of us at MIT are extremely saddened by the death of this promising young man who touched the lives of so many,” he said. “It pains me to think that MIT played any role in a series of events that have ended in tragedy.”

Reif said he’s asked Hal Abelson, a professor of electrical engineering and computer science at MIT, and a founding director of Creative Commons and the Free Software Foundation, to lead the investigation into MIT’s actions leading up to Swartz’s suicide. “Now is a time for everyone involved to reflect on their actions, and that includes all of us at MIT,” Reif wrote.

Here’s the letter that MIT president Reif wrote to his community on Sunday.

To the members of the MIT community:

Yesterday we received the shocking and terrible news that on Friday in New York, Aaron Swartz, a gifted young man well known and admired by many in the MIT community, took his own life. With this tragedy, his family and his friends suffered an inexpressible loss, and we offer our most profound condolences. Even for those of us who did not know Aaron, the trail of his brief life shines with his brilliant creativity and idealism.

Although Aaron had no formal affiliation with MIT, I am writing to you now because he was beloved by many members of our community and because MIT played a role in the legal struggles that began for him in 2011.

I want to express very clearly that I and all of us at MIT are extremely saddened by the death of this promising young man who touched the lives of so many. It pains me to think that MIT played any role in a series of events that have ended in tragedy.

I will not attempt to summarize here the complex events of the past two years. Now is a time for everyone involved to reflect on their actions, and that includes all of us at MIT. I have asked Professor Hal Abelson to lead a thorough analysis of MIT’s involvement from the time that we first perceived unusual activity on our network in fall 2010 up to the present. I have asked that this analysis describe the options MIT had and the decisions MIT made, in order to understand and to learn from the actions MIT took. I will share the report with the MIT community when I receive it.

I hope we will all reach out to those members of our community we know who may have been affected by Aaron’s death. As always, MIT Medical is available to provide expert counseling, but there is no substitute for personal understanding and support.

I though scientific ideas were to be spread out to allow for hybridization and modification allowing for technology leaps not thought of by the original publishers of research papers...

Imagine if Fleming's work never left some dusty cabinet, but was hoarded....we'd have never seen penicillin.

There just might be some little piece of research collecting "dust" (I wonder what one would call "digital dust"?) in the repositories of MIT...jealously hoarded...that, if openly available, would allow some non MIT hermit/genius to make the quantum leap in thought just by reading an article...everything might be possible but nothing generally is because the information is not getting to the peculiar collection of brain cells and thought patters needed to make that possible...

And when a genius actually sees the problem and tries to fix it (in a rather traditional, MIT manner...remember, the GNU project, the LINUX and other distributions...are products of that illustrious collection of eccentrics...)...they threaten him with 35 years in a federal prison. They bully a nerdy genius that suffers from depression to keep their little collection of dusty science papers in the hands of a bunch of greedy, selfish and miserly hobgoblins...

Now the young man of promise is dead...(strange...there was no suicide note...that's odd...)...and the connection that was almost mathematically assured to happen in some field of study (that may be outside of the hobgoblin's lair) will never get made...and we may end up extinct as a species as a result....

(and people wonder why I believe in God; there HAS to be something out there that is actively choking the collective genius of the species Human)

Anti-Bullying campaigns are everywhere in the media and here we have the the criminal justice system bullying 26 year olds with 35 years in prison and $1 million in fines for downloading documents. Now a promising young life and talent is gone. Resignations are definitely in order and a hard look at just what should be considered an online white collar crime and how we punish the criminals is long overdue. What harm was done to any individuals in this case?

Lest we forget, MIT also falsified the results of the cold fusion experiments, effectively destroying Flieschman and Pons, since everyone else then piled on. MIT ridiculed the experiment before it started, in a very unscientific manner, then hid some results indicating anomalous heat generation, causing one administrator to resign in protest.

Although I think Flieschman and Pons had the wrong theory, even NASA is now proposing LENR (low energy nuclear reactions). I do not think the two pilloried researchers were frauds or fools - they were just reporting anomalies. And for this, thanks to MIT, they were destroyed. MITs motive, obviously, is that they get millions for hot fusion experiments. It was a villianous business, and now they have done another. I have lost all respect for MIT>

MIT should apologize to a lot of people for their non-scientific, non-open attitude. These massive, government-funded university departments tend to retard science by clinging to failing paradigms, a la the work of Thomas Kuhn.

After all, department heads are usually the most inferior scientists. The real ones are doing science. The hacks become Administrators and sit on the neck of people who have new ideas.

I think that there are two reasons that contributed to Swartz’s death that should be reviewed. First, the decision that the Massachusetts U.S. Attorney’s office insisted on continuing the war against Swartz even after JSTOR declined to pursue action against him. As I know, JSTOR’s action against Swartz is only because they have the responsibility to monitor usage to guard against unauthorized use of their content and material. However, since Swartz finally returned the downloaded data in his possession, there is no more further damage from Swartz illegally using the downloaded materials. Demand Progress's executive director David Segal also said on the website that the charges against Swartz did not make any sense. “It's like trying to put someone in jail for allegedly checking too many books out of the library,” he said. Second but most critical, MIT did not do the appropriate action for handling Swartz’s affair. MIT did not follow the JSTOR’s lead and this led to the Massachusetts U.S. Attorney’s office to have the excuse to continue putting Swartz on a charge. If MIT followed the JSTOR’s lead, perhaps Massachusetts U.S. Attorney’s office would not continue the war against Swartz, and Swartz might not of have committed suicide in his apartment. Therefore, I think the Massachusetts U.S. Attorney’s office and MIT should indeed relook into their actions which may of have resulted into Swartz’s death.

When you review your 35 year sentencing for Aaron Swartz for abuse of a public library network, but no malicious intent ?

I'd say- my former comments ? THAT is what 35 years should look like Sister !

You save 35 YEARS for something out of the ordinary - NOT A SCRIPT THAT FETCHES PUBLIC DOCUMENTS USING A LIBRARY NETWORK BECAUSE ONLY 18 LIBRARIES HAD ACCESS - when the person's INTENT was to BETTER SOCIETY and bring about FREE EXCHANGE OF INFORMATION.

At 8 cents a page ? That sounds like the going rate for page boys at a Republican Convention after hours party.

When the outing of 1 CIA agent translates to 30 months, when EVEN THE DIRECTOR OF THE CIA SAYS - this isn't right, there was no malicious intent- you figured out how to derive a max of 35 year sentence ?

Hey if 35 years is right for Aaron ? I think we should be looking at LIFE MANY people inside the beltway.

BEST SOLUTION Ms. Ortiz ?

A letter of apology to the parents - and DO realize Ms. Ortiz - you must not hold yourself responsible for Aaron's choice. That is not what I'm saying - you can not control whether someone commits suicide or not, but you are responsible for mishandling this case, and not stepping in to say - wait- no, in THIS case ? We should be looking at a fine or community service, this isn't QUITE the same as someone holding up a liquor store in Brighton armed, only getting 20 years.

Second, you should take a step back, resign, and review how it is possible this happened, and how such powers CAN be abused.

Third - go study Afghanistan before the Bush and Reagan administration, go see what life USED TO BE LIKE - go understand where this ENTIRE veiled threat Bush II claims originates - was - as Hillary Clinton said two Novembers ago are problems WE created. We ARMED THEM TO THE TEETH and - I ARGUE Frank Anderson at the CIA KNEW VERY WELL - Russia was pulling out, and we STILL ARMED THEM - Gorbachev WARNED US - and then what ? years down the road we go "Look, Terrorists are flying planes out of Logan airport to attack the World Trade Center" - We better lock down society and create the Patriot Act to prevent this from happening again, and while we are at it ? We'll dole out 35 YEAR SENTENCES FOR LIBRARY NETWORK ABUSE CASES that were NOT ANYWHERE NEAR CRIMINAL INTENT.

Fourth- help lobby that the DoD take the funding necessary to pay for an array of servers to MAKE AVAILABLE the very documents Aaron was seeking to. Make them FREELY DOWNLOADABLE to the public. I'm SURE out of 600 BILLION DOLLARS where BILLIONS MONEY GOES TO RESEARCH PROJECTS AT MIT - AND CMU - TO GO KILL THOSE PEOPLE WE ARMED AND GAVE BILLIONS OF DOLLARS TO NOT SO LONG AGE. I bet 10 million would MORE than cover a fully time server admin, 1 gov. employee to manage the files.

Either way Ms. Ortiz, your ACTIONS do NOT PROMOTE OR REACH FOR A BETTER SOCIETY.

INHIBITING ACCESS TO INFORMATION RIDES ON THE BORDER OF FASCISM -

Fifth- People die every DAY in Pakistan, I suggest you START CARING Ms. Ortiz - Had Reagan and Bush been impeached ?

There wouldn't BE A VACUUM AFGHANISTAN - Why don't you go care about the 90% of ALL HEROIN IN THE WORLD Coming out of Pakistan Ms. Ortiz, all the while the US doesn't do a THING ABOUT THAT - I'd argue Heroin is far more dangerous than a few USAir planes.

Just remember- WE GAVE THE Afghan Freedom Fighters and the Mujahideen their weapons, CIA GAVE THEM BILLIONS IN CASH - $100 bills to fight a war that DIDN'T EXIST

If you want to explore the LEGAL CASE OF THE YEAR Ms. Ortiz ?

I suggest you connect with the right people who HAVE ACCESS TO DOCUMENTATION - SUCH THAT - YOU MAY INDEED HAVE TO BREAK A FEW LAWS TO TAKE DOWN AN ENTIRE THREE LETTER ORGANIZATION.

CIA KNEW RUSSIA WAS PULLING OUT - This is goes back to Bush I, Reagan and Casey.

I argue CIA is RESPONSIBLE for the COMPLETE DECIMATION AND BREAKDOWN OF AFGHANISTAN which has LED TO THE WONDERFUL QUALITY OF LIFE US CITIZEN'S NOW ENJOY with people like YOU Ms. Ortiz - HAPPILY ABIDING TO "The Patriot Act" - gee- Maybe Aaron realized early what many US citizens realize Post Patriot Act- if you can't have the potential for a quality life ? What's the use of living.

The Patriot Act will be undone when the CIA is unwound. And in a MOST INTELLIGENT WAY- I ASSURE YOU - the TWO ARE DEEPLY INTERCONNECTED.

By the way- North went through Herat regarding October Surprise- your panel FAILED. Life would be SO MUCH BETTER had the US CIA not complete ARMED THE MUJAHIDEEN IN AFGHANISTAN. But hey- let's go ask General Tommy Franks - after all - he only spent 5 months at the Bush ranch planning entry into Afghanistan and then decided he would take up banking, when he was given a SEAT ON THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS AT BANK OF AMERICA - until I help him realize that probably wan't the smartest thing to be doing at this time. Ever wonder WHY the MAJORITY of Countrywide's MORTGAGES were COASTAL Ms. Ortiz ? EVER WONDER WHY THERE EXISTS A LOBBY THAT SAYS - oh no - Sea levels aren't rising - oh no- Sandy was just a fluke- no, I've got it from a Ukrainian scientist in Antarctica that the COASTAL PROPERTIES ? they're already gone - we're looking at 1 inch now from Pine Island. Forget terrorism and Patriot Act, You're in Boston - I'd start learning how swim and pay for the catastrophe when you see what a city with TUNNELS UNDER IT via the Big Dig looks like after a Sandy of it's own ! You're talking HUNDREDS OF BILLIONS.

Good thing you were protecting the people from Aaron wasn't it Ms. Ortiz- why - you sure advanced society didn't you.

I have CLOUT IN BOSTON - I'll see to it you're Bostonian of the Year award is revoked.

WHY ?

YOU KNOW WHY YOU SICK OVER REACHING MOTHER

HOW ?

Oh - I have CLOUT

Locke Ober ? STANDARD HANGOUT - THAT BENTLEY PARKED OUTSIDE of LO ?

Boston Police never ticked that car -

Carmen - you have NO IDEA JUST BY CHANCE - WHAT KIND OF MONSTER YOU HAVE AWOKEN

WE KILL AND DOJ TURNS A BLIND EYE - you think Obama's recommendation for you ? TRANSLATES TO ANYTHING ?

WE KILL AND DOJ TURNS A BLIND EYE CARMEN

AND YOU DOLE OUT 35 year max ? 1 million dollar fine ?

YOU WANT TO SEE WHAT MANDATES 35 YEAR MAX? and 1 million fine ?

how's the family Carmen -

Bill Colby LOVED HIS CANOE -

YOU DON'T SEEM TO UNDERSTAND

ONCE YOU ARE DEAD- there really isn't a lot of wiggle room to finnagle justice -

HOW ABOUT WAZIRISTAN DRONES CARMEN !

27 will die on Pakistan - lest you resign - and you know what ?

DOJ won't TOUCH THIS - why ?

it's SO DAMNED FAR UPSTREAM - not even DOD -

Gee- NOT DOJ - NOT DOD - Gee- WHO COULD POSSIBLY PROMISE SUCH A TURNOUT ?

STARTING TO FIGURE THIS OUT CARMEN ?

RESIGN

Aaron was A CANDIDATE FOR ONRAMP - YOU F'cKED IT UP

YOU PAY - YOU RESIGN

NO ONE NEEDS TO UNDERSTAND

YOU JUST DO THIS -

OR ?

Hey- try news.google.com on the 27th -

EVERYBODY

LISTEN TO ME

AND RETURN

MY SHIP

I'm you CAPTAIN

Though I'm FEELING AFTER Aaron's death ?

MIGHTY SICK

EVERYWHERE YOU EAT CARMEN - EVERYWHERE YOU WALK - EVERY PLACE YOU VISIT IN YOUR CAR - VERY THING YOU SAY - is no longer your right nor property - THINK ABOUT IT - I JUST CAN'T LIVE WITHOUT IT - so please don't TAKE MY SHIP FROM ME - actually ?

Thanks to PATRIOT ACT ?

WE OWN YOU EVERY WAKING SECOND OF TH$E DAY CARMEN

Isn't that nice ?

I'm YOUR CAPTAIN

BUT I'm FEELING MIGHTY SICK

WE REMOVE PEOPLE CARMEN - DOJ DOES NOT INTERVENE - IT GETS REAL INTERESTING POST BUSH AND PATRIOT - NOW ? Why ? WE CAN DISCERN THREAT AND ACT -

enjoy your final moments Carmen -

I SUGGEST YOU RESIGN

27 people in Pakistan will NOT BE ENJOYING THEIR FINAL MOMENTS on Jan 27th

SICK EH ? PROMISE ? THREAT? OH no

just BUSINESS AS USUAL HERE -

I'm GETTING CLOSER TO MY HOME !

YOUR EXCESSIVE SENTENCING CAUSED Aaron to die Carmen -

I wish to demonstrate to you - WHAT EXCESSIVE SENTENCING LOOKS LIKE -

RESIGN

This isn't a threat

THIS

is a PROMISE - YOU WILL REGRET NOT RESIGNING - IT WILL ONLY GET WORSE -

THIS IS HOW WE WORK CARMEN - WE WILL REACH OUT TO PEOPLE UNTIL YOU RESPOND.

YOU WILL SEE

AND UNDERSTAND

JUST WHAT JUSTICE MEANS

OR NEVER DID - BAD MOVE ON Aaron.

He was a VALUED POTENTIAL ASSET -

YOU SCREWED IT UP - I am 50% on loss for WHAT Aaron was - 50% loss for WHO Aaron was

YOU LOST ME THIS ASSET CARMEN - I have been contacted to LOOK INTO THIS

Although Aaron had no formal affiliation with MIT, I am writing to you now because he was beloved by many members of our community and because MIT played a role in the legal struggles that began for him in 2011.

@KaitHensleyWhy would someone sign that brain-dead petition? It's not even grammatically correct, as if someone dashed it of in a hurry and with little thought. No wonder it's gotten a whopping hundred supporters. :D

note also the the work of Jed Rothwell on lenr-canr.org, allowed the community of LENR to have access to some hidden papers. anyway, since he respect copyright many papers stay protected and slow innovation.

The fraud of MIT replication is not the worst. the experiment calorimetry was absolutely loose and even with the read data, thet would only have doubt... the real crime is the activise against LENR.

The magazine, like Nature and Sciece, and supported by SciAm, have also great responsibility in rejecting good papers, and blocking awareness of the public of what science have accumulated as evidence (tritium, heat, he4, transmutation)....

How to understand that Oriani paper was rejected after a positive peer-review, that ENEA report 41 by deninno and rubbia get simply ignored... that Caltech and MIT broken calorimetry, and other patholigic rebuttal, did not get reexamined...

Not a surprise that the revival of the domain came from businessmen (National Instruments, Defkalion, Rossi, Prometeon), and from a scientist whose discovery of high temperature superconducting at CERN was rejected because impossible (Celani)... until someone else finally break the wall of denial...

the counter example is surprisingly Naturwissenschaften, that even hired a LENR editor (Storms).

Note that there are more and more reports that the influence of big journals is weakening, that good papers get published anywhere in big or small journals, that pay to publish an pay to read journals introduce more bad behaviors than quality. Peer review is more and more questioned as pal-review, especially on controversial subjects... and loose otherwise...

far beyond what that drama about Swartz, or the fraud at MIT on LENR in 89, there is a great problem with science "administration" blocking innovation, like it happens in dying corporation.

the problem is that today, the scientific community is so global that if the heart of science administration is corrupted, then there is no place to avoid it... the rule of funding , the reference of truth are the same...

we need more biodiversity in science, and opensourcing the sciences papers might help to create some independent circles, and islands, where new ideas can be worked on, funded...common criteria is the enemy. wee need controversy, schools of idea, opposed funding criteria, ... we only have politically correct funding, centralization, commons criteria...

Maybe it is not so bad, because anyway, despite MIT&al blocking, ther were island that developed a LENR science in Italy (enea), in japan corps (toyota, mitsubishi), and in some US hidden garage (SRI, Nasa, spawar, nrl)... problem was just funding and sharing.

--

AlainCo tech watcher on LENR-forum.com.

If you want evidence, about what I claim, ask me... I have the evidences, papers, article, story, links and thousand more,. however you can find them easily if you know how to use internet, and read my words.

Home nobody else have to die or suicide to make things advance. Science advance one funeral at a time. Maybe increase of life expectancy is the problem.

@IskenderElRusi There was no "overreach", just a prosecutor prosecuting the laws she is sworn and paid to prosecute, after being handed a grand jury indictment. At least two different plea deals were offered, involving four and six months of incarceration, and many of those jumping on the Swartz bandwagon are doing so only after his death, probably without even knowing of his existence beforehand.

The petition has zero chance of succeeding. In the end, no one is going to force prosecutors to offer zero jail time in such situations; that's what the petition boils down to, bleating about "overreach" because of the possibility of relatively minor jail time if a conviction had been reached at trial, after the defendant rejected multiple plea deals.

@yjtang Segal later stated that his library analogy (which is stupid in the extreme) was not related to the Swartz case at all. MIT was not required to follow JSTOR's lead, nor should Swartz have gotten off scot-free, in my opinion, for his massive data theft in an unlawful attempt to destroy a nonprofit organization.

@Timothy.Miltz Your post is too long and ill-informed to read. In fact I couldn't get past the first sentence, where you claimed that U.S. Attorney Ortiz sentenced Swartz to 35 years in prison. Try to read up before you spew next time.

@PeripateticNumpty@cybervigilante2 AWWW! The reality of it all comes to play through you. That is the crux of this is'nt it, that imformation belongs to one peron,orgainistion, library, what? The original thinker, does that mean the theory of relativity, should now be locked in the shriveled dead brian , of it's originator? Should that imformation be like the evils of Pandora's box, the lid is lifted so it's there for all to be poisoned by. At what point does the research tech. in India, get clued in that the vacine that he has been working on to cure cancer, was tried the same way twenty years prior, so he has just waisted ten years of his life his study, his research. Would that not have been nice if that imformation was available, and he could have persued the correct path. But I am sure you are correct, everything must be protected.

@PeripateticNumpty@cybervigilante2 By signing on to the persecution of Swartz. After all, if you have to protect your library, sending someone to prison for 35 years with a $4 million fine is perfectly reasonable. Say, you wouldn't happen to be Carmen Ortiz, would you?

@PeripateticNumpty@IskenderElRusi Well, Carmen, it's a well-known truth that you can get a grand jury to indict a ham sandwich. And the law that you were supporting is decades old and extremely vague. And the "plea deals" you offered included jail time and pleading guilty to 13 felonies, and going bankrupt defending himself, despite the "victim" acknowledging that no one had been harmed. And why does it matter if people hadn't heard of Swartz before you and Heymann decided to destroy his life?

The petition may not succeed, but I think your run for governor of Massachusetts is over, and that's really what destroying Swartz was about--crushing internet activists, looking like you're "tough on crime" (while letting corporate criminals skate, again and again), and revving up your political career. Good luck with that now.

Given a choice - I'll side with the police officer - and leave former Senator Craig - to go privatize the state of Idaho - after all- 1 year in prison is justice for 1 gram of marijuana ? and Abu Ghraib was a FINE IDEA eh ?

@genessender@PeripateticNumpty@cybervigilante2 Nope--I'm just not a poser, given to contributing to false martyrdom. There was no "persecution"; the suggestion is stupid, and just proves that you know little of the facts of the case. Swartz was never going to be sent to prison, nor would he have faced a fine of a million dollars in reality (not sure where you're getting your $4 million figure).

Say, you wouldn't happen to be a "hacktivist", would you? A tip: no amount of twisting facts, or pleading a higher moral cause, justifies crime. Don't commit crime; instead, work to change laws through the proper channels.

It was the defendant's right to reject the plea deals. {shrug} Nor did he have to bankrupt himself, though he chose to. And under your false logic, attempted murder would not be punishable because "no one was harmed"; never mind the attempt, eh?